Living in Recovery Mode

A Journey Back to Myself

I found myself moving in slow motion nearly every morning. My body was still half asleep, heavy, uncooperative. I prepared a coffee and clung to it like a life buoy as if it were the only thing keeping me upright. Meanwhile, the little one was already running around like Speedy Gonzales, fast, loud, relentless. That alone was enough to frustrate me. I felt unable to keep up with him, no matter how much I tried. The gap between his energy and my capacity felt enormous. I was already unraveling.

The cup felt heavier than usual in my hand. Lifting it took effort, concentration, time. It took me forever to bring it to my lips and I completely forgot that it was lava hot. The shock was violent. I spilled the coffee everywhere. I cursed myself immediately, harshly, without mercy. At least now I was fully awake. While scrubbing the floor, irritated and tense, I kept thinking that I should have been doing other more important things instead. I was already behind. Again.

I was still on my hands and knees when my son suddenly appeared beside me, talking quickly, words tumbling out of his mouth. His lips were moving but for a moment all I could hear was noise. Just noise. It pressed against my head, my chest, my nerves. I felt overwhelmed, cornered, flooded. Before I could stop myself, I shouted at him that I had to clean the stupid floor first. The words came out sharp, louder than I intended. He vanished as quickly as he had appeared, leaving me alone in the kitchen. I let out a long, heavy sigh, so deep it felt as though something inside me had given up.

Then guilt hit. Hard. My body suddenly gave way and I had to sit down on the floor, as if my muscles had simply shut off.

I stayed there, unable to move, trapped in complete silence, while a wave of negative feelings crashed over me. They came all at once. Shame. Anger. Failure. Exhaustion. I couldn’t fight any of it. My inner tension tightened further, coiling inside me. I felt restless, agitated, desperately trying to contain the chaos, to keep it from spilling out but it was already everywhere.

The voice of my subconscious turned ruthless. It reprimanded me relentlessly. I sounded like a bad attorney arguing a hopeless case, grasping for excuses that never held. For every criticism I aimed at myself, I felt forced to justify it, to explain it, to defend it and every attempt only confirmed the same verdict: I was wrong. Again. The cycle was relentless. The effort of it drained me completely.

I felt cornered, with no way out of my own thoughts. Despair tightened around me, heavy and suffocating, as if every possible outcome had already failed. There was nothing left to fix, nothing left to argue. Just the certainty that I was trapped inside myself.

Then helplessness settled in, slowly and quietly. It wasn’t dramatic. It didn’t scream. It simply removed my ability to respond. I stopped trying to defend myself. I stopped searching for the right explanation. I had no more energy to push back against the accusations forming in my own mind.

I could find no more words to defend myself and an emptiness followed. Not relief. Not peace. Just absence. The noise stopped but nothing replaced it. I was no longer hurting, yet I felt hollow, as if something essential had stepped away.

My breathing began to slow on its own. It became steadier, more regular, as the voices gradually faded until they disappeared completely. Throughout this time, I had not moved. I remained on the floor, suspended in that stillness until I noticed a strange dampness. I looked down and realized that I was still holding my dirty dishcloth in my hand, resting on my lap.

I do not remember how long I stayed there, staring at it without doing anything, before my son returned.

He gently asked why I was sitting on the floor and quickly added that he had finished brushing his teeth. His voice was calm, almost cautious, as if he sensed that something inside me was still unsteady.

I looked at him and felt a quiet relief when I realized he wasn’t angry about my behavior. I moved toward him slowly, still unsure of my own strength and whispered an apology for shouting at him. The words came out softly, without explanation, without defense.

In response, he hugged me. It was simple and immediate, as if nothing needed to be repaired or discussed. He told me that he loved me and in that moment, his small heart warmed mine just enough for happiness to return. Not loudly. Not fully. Just enough to remind me that I was still here and so was love.

Only later did I understand that this moment was not a failure and it was not a breaking point. It was not proof that I was incapable or overwhelmed beyond repair. It was simply a moment where my body stopped negotiating with my mind.

I wasn’t resting. I was recovering.

Recovery does not announce itself. It doesn’t come with clarity or motivation. It looks like slowness, like heaviness, like sitting on a kitchen floor because standing suddenly requires too much. It looks like reactions that feel disproportionate and emotions that arrive without warning. Not because something is wrong but because something has been held for too long.

Living in recovery mode means functioning differently. It means needing more time for less output. It means moving more slowly through things that once felt automatic. It means realizing that the pace you maintained for years has a cost and that cost eventually asks to be paid.

Recovery mode is not dramatic. It is quiet. It does not ask to be fixed or optimized. It does not respond to pressure or discipline. It simply asks to be allowed, without being rushed back into performance.

I am not fully rested yet. I am not back to who I was before.
I am catching up with what my body endured while I kept going.

And for now, that has to be enough.

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If you wish to continue this reflection

This piece completes a wider inner thread exploring performance, rest and recovery:

• The Self That Performs and the Self That Remains
  The frame. It names the split between functioning and being.
• When I Stop Explaining Myself
  The first visible crack in performance, where language and justification fall away.
• The Illusion of Free Time
  The realization that even rest can become performance in disguise.